now panic and freak out
by Pseudonymperson
Summary: The zombie apocalypse is a lot less dramatic than everyone's made it out to be. Skye, Jeffrey, and the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1

**I never thought that I'd be writing this. Zombies, and I guess, the end of the world.**

* * *

A week before the world ends, Skye's eyes change color.

Jane's don't- but her skin turns gray and starts falling apart and Batty's scared of both of them.

Skye doesn't blame her. She'd run from herself too, if she could.

Mr. Penderwick's locked himself in his office, and even through the locked door, Skye can hear the screams.

Iantha listens to the radio. She keeps it tuned to a station that plays white noise constantly, with the exception of the day that gunshots take over the airwaves. After that, Hound runs away and Skye finds herself missing Jeffrey. She hasn't seen him since winter. Nuclear winter, she reminds herself.

The winter that he kissed her and she kissed him and the sky caught fire and came down in pieces of scorched metal.

The house reeks of blood. She hasn't seen Rosalind for a while now, either.

Jane wanders aimlessly around the backyard, picking what's left of the flowers and presenting them in pairs to Skye.

Skye keeps them in a vase by the window.

Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction, Jane has Skye write for her. The start to a story she never manages to finish. The headaches are too much for her to continue.

Eventually, the stars start moving, and Skye tracks their movement in charts and graphs and maps of the horizon.

One day, she drives out to the sea just to see if it's changed at all. It's turned green, and Skye can't help but feel that maybe this was the way it was meant to be.

The time passes in the tang of metal and the sound of underwater.

She waits.

And then she doesn't.

She goes to find Jeffrey.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days before the world ends, the sea turns black.

Skye almost drowns in it, something about the way the waves call to her strangely comforting. Somehow, it reminds her of home.

Until she's gasping for air and her chest is twisting, heart pounding flat against her ribcage.

Her heart, for some reason, isn't as strong as it used to be.

She manages to drag herself out (ignores the way the waves whisper for her to stay) and stares into the sky. The sun has turned an alarming shade of purple.

* * *

It's harder than she thinks it is, trying to find Jeffrey. Most days, she stays in and dreams about the sea.

When she's actually actively trying to avoid drowning, she goes down to the basement and listens to the radio. Her cell phone's dead, and the computer is covered in blood (Jane had coughed on it).

She usually finds Iantha sprawled out on the bed she'd managed to convince Skye to drag down the basement steps and into the middle of the room, Batty and Ben on opposite sides of her.

* * *

"Skye!" Iantha says, eyes widening.

Batty very nearly falls off the bed.

"What?"

She spins around, catches sight of herself in the mirror.

Her eyes are as dark as the sea.


	3. Chapter 3

The day the world ends, Jane dies.

It happens shortly before the stars come out: one minute, Jane's there, laughing at something Skye's said, and the next minute, she's not.

Skye can't remember the rest.

* * *

It's a short funeral. Iantha officiates it, and Batty recites poetry over her grave. Skye is nowhere to be found.

The day the world ends, Skye loses herself in the sea.

She drifts.


	4. Chapter 4

The day after the world ends, Jane wakes up with bruises on her legs and a rasp in her voice.

Which, you know, would be a problem if she weren't already dead.

She claws her way out of the ground with minimal effort (being a zombie apparently has its perks), and tries to ignore the way her breathing comes in ragged gasps.

* * *

_They dug her out of the ground, shadows casting wide over dust and decay, relics of a civilization that had only lasted a day. The quiet is the only thing keeping them alive. Her hair is strung with flowers. Daisies._

* * *

It's not an unpleasant experience, being the sea. The stars seem brighter from the waves.

Saltwater stings Skye's eyes and soaks into her skin.

Far off in the distance, she thinks she can hear Jeffrey.


	5. Chapter 5

Jeffrey finds Skye washed up on the shore. Her eyes are wide open, hair tangled in fishing lures and driftwood.

"How are you not dead?" he asks, with a stunned half-laugh.

"Magic." she coughs. "The world is ending, don't act so surprised."

He shrugs. "Seeing is believing."

"I was the sea." Skye whispers, a faraway look in her eyes. "I was the sea, and the sea was me."

"Did you hit your head?"

"Dead? Jane's dead."

"She's not."

"She_ is_. I saw her die."

"She's not dead, Skye."

"She's dead, Jeffrey!"

"The dead are coming back."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I really, really hope you're wrong."

"Why?"

"Because we've got a problem."


	6. Chapter 6

The next Skye knows, she's climbing the stairs to Jeffrey's room.  
She doesn't see Mrs. T-D anywhere in sight, so she counts that as a success.  
"They didn't make it." Jeffrey says, from behind her. "There was a cutoff date-"  
"I'm sorry." she tries, the words sticking to the roof of her mouth.

* * *

_And if you just watch, spring will turn to summer, and nothing's changed at all-_  
_she's still caught in the same patterns that dictated her life from start to finish._  
_She really should know better._  
_She should._

* * *

Jeffrey sighs, rests his head in his hands.  
"You haven't changed."  
"I guess that makes two of us."


	7. Chapter 7

"The zombies aren't evil."

"Correct."

"They're like dead people, but they're alive and only slightly life threatening."

"Also correct."

"And from what researchers have found, the only risk is their increased strength."

"Yes."

"So we don't actually have a problem?'

"We don't."

"So all we need to do is not get choked to death?"

"There's protection against them on the market, but I really doubt that it works."

"That's what she said."

"Skye!"

* * *

"Skye, we really shouldn't be doing this."

"Okay."

"I have-_had_-a girlfriend."

"And?"

"That's it."  
"Thought so."


	8. Chapter 8

When Skye first realizes that her own house is trying to kill her, she trips over one of Hound's old toys and almost breaks her neck.  
_Home is where the heart is_, she hears, singsong at the edge of her mind, _and what's a home without a broken and diseased heart to match?_  
_Shut up_, she growls, and nearly lands face first in a pile of laundry.  
Mr. Penderwick waves out her from where he's mowing the lawn.

* * *

Jane's hands tighten around the back of Skye's neck, and she wonders briefly if this is how it ends-  
death by strangling, windpipes deprived of oxygen, and she's survived this far but has yet to encounter anything as startling/;  
"You know, in civilized society, this is what's known as affection."  
Skye chokes out a laugh, and maybe half a pint of blood (Jane really needs to tone down the zombie thing).

"How's Jane?" Rosalind asks, as soon as Skye's cleared the doorframe.  
Perfect, Skye wants to respond_, _and fragile and daring and_ alive_, but she can't bring herself to say it so she just nods through the tears that are inevitably coming, because Skye Penderwick doesn't cry, except when she does, except when she's covered in blood and dirt and sweat and skin covering bones.  
It's kind of gross.  
She's never felt more at home.


End file.
